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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29675499">it all starts with betrayal</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurukapologist/pseuds/kurukapologist'>kurukapologist</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Body Horror, Death, F/M, Gore, Suicide, is orpheus a corpsefucker? discuss, the usual</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:27:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,651</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29675499</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurukapologist/pseuds/kurukapologist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Orpheus goes into Hades' domain to find his wife. But she comes back the same way she went in...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eurydice wife of Orpheus/Orpheus (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>it all starts with betrayal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hades laughed, and Orpheus could see the bones in his hardly-there skin moving. He's far from human, a terrifying, <em>awful </em>sight. "Why should I listen to you? What can you do for me?"</p><p><em>A bargain. </em>He knew how these worked; Hades might be a god, but the concept was the same. "I can play you music."</p><p>"Anyone can do that. Most musicians go to Tartarus, but anyone can do that."</p><p>"Please. Hear me out."</p><p>"<em>Fine.</em>"</p><p>Orpheus strummed his lyre (the trusty one, which could quite literally take him to Hell and back), singing quietly. This melody was of time and of pain; of loss and of grief and of guilt. Of the future he couldn't see yet.</p><p>
  <em>Please listen.</em>
</p><p>Hades listened.</p><p>In that moment, under his song, the world fell apart and put itself back together again.</p><hr/><p>"You may leave," Hades said. "With your wife. But only under one condition. If you break it, she dies all over again."</p><p>Orpheus nodded silently.</p><p>"Do not look back."</p><hr/><p>The walk must have only been an hour or so at most, but every second of that torture of <em>not looking back </em>was like being stabbed, individually, every nerve in his body shoved through with blades and hung up for hours on end to die.</p><p>"Eurydice?" he called, and he could swear he heard a response, floating through the darkness, but he bit his tongue and continued on. <em>Hope is all I have, don't look back, don't risk it, she'd </em>hate <em>you if you turned around-</em></p><p>Orpheus breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the surface, but kept his eyes screwed shut. "Eurydice..."</p><p>"Orpheus, my love," she said, and kissed him, and <em>she's alive-</em></p><p>But-</p><p>Her lips were ragged and soaked, and the hands cupping his face were <em>raw </em>and when he opened his eyes, the person before him was not a person at all.</p><p>He screamed, and ran.</p><hr/><p>"Hades!" He screamed, not as he'd screamed when Eurydice had greeted him, but as a man so full of horror that words could not contain it. "<em>Hades!</em>" He screamed and screamed again, until he was sure the words had burnt through his throat.</p><p>The god appeared abruptly. "What do you want?" </p><p>"Give me back my wife," he sobbed, falling to his knees.</p><p>"I did."</p><p>"No, no, not the corpse, my <em>wife, </em>you filthy liar, you-"</p><p>"<em>What </em>did you just call me?" Hades grabbed him by the collar of his tunic, glaring. "Why shouldn't I burn your body to ashes right where you stand."</p><p>"I-" Orpheus sobbed. "Didn't-"</p><p>"I gave you her back. You told me you wanted her back. What more do you want, selfish mortal?"</p><p>"I'm-" He fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. "Forgive... <em>please-</em>"</p><p>"I will not forgive you. If you continue on like this, your actions will face consequences."</p><p>"Hades-"</p><p>"Go. Before I take you to Tartarus myself."</p><p>Orpheus nodded.</p><p>As he always did, he ran.</p><hr/><p>Eurydice hadn't moved a step. "Hello, my beloved," she whispered, bony bloody hand curling around his cheek. "I've missed you."</p><p>Orpheus recoiled, trying to hide his visceral disgust. <em>Does she know?  Can she see? Would she still...</em></p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Don't go there.</em>
</p><p>Eurydice pulled him into a kiss; it tasted like death and the end of everything and though she looked deader than dead she acted like any old human.</p><p>Not like a monster.</p><p>"Orpheus?" Her voice was softer than soft, so gentle and so not... whatever she'd become.</p><p>A dead woman walking. </p><p>Orpheus kissed her back, and found rotting flesh for a tongue, teeth set in infection-riddled gums, hands more bone than skin.</p><p>(If only he could die here.)</p><p>
  <em>(But she loves me.)</em>
</p><hr/><p>Orpheus was sat by the river bank of their wedding, their shortlived happiness.</p><p>She found him, as she always did; had always followed him anywhere, even in death. His long hair was damp from washing, and his eyes were wet with what could have been river water but was probably tears.</p><p>"Hello, my love," she said, and her voice sounded wrong, colder than before. Rougher. Less like language and more sounds thrown into jumbled words, clumsy and harsh and broken just like her voicebox.</p><p>Orpheus ignored her.</p><p>Eurydice opened her mouth and tried to sing a pretty tune.</p><p>"That's our wedding song," he whispered, and instinctively reached for the lyre slung in the long grass behind him.</p><p>Eurydice passed it to him, cringing at how his eyes seemed to pass over her.</p><p>He took it from her, wiping away the bloodstains on it, and strummed out the tune she was singing.</p><p>In that moment, he could have sworn he heard the trees and animals humming too.</p><hr/><p>One of the naiads hung over his shoulder. "Orpheus," she hissed.</p><p>He looked into her eyes, and they were as blue as the water below him. "What do you want?" he asked hoarsely, still raw from crying. "What do you, what..."</p><p>"We see how you treat your sweet Eurydice," she sang, voice washing over him. "You think she's a <em>monster.</em>"</p><p>"No!" He jumps back. "I love her, I-"</p><p>"You cringe when she touches you," the naiad said in the same lilting tone, except shot through with mocking and derision. "But she <em>loves</em> you."</p><p>"She's nothing more than blood and bones," he sobbed into his hands.</p><p>"But she <em>loves you, </em>and anyway, <em>you </em>brought her back, didn't you?"</p><p>"I thought Hades meant... alive..."</p><p>The spirit's voice turned cold. "Then you didn't love her."</p><p>"But I love her-"</p><p>"Oh, no, sweet Orpheus. She loves you. Your love left with her mortal body."</p><p>"I'm <em>sorry! </em>Why does nobody <em>listen </em>to me?"</p><p>"We've listened to you for years, lover boy. It's time you listened to us, now." Her hand grasped his shoulder with a growl. "Now <em>leave, </em>and never come back, or else face the consequences of your betrayal."</p><p><em>I'll love you forevermore, </em>he'd whispered to Eurydice, under the moonlight.</p><p>Maybe that was a lie.</p><hr/><p>"Do not let him die."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>Hades glared. "Do not let the man Orpheus die. Let his brain rot from the inside out, let the bones of him go hollow. Inflict upon him the misery of death, <em>but do not take his life.</em>"</p><p>"But... why?"</p><p>"He promised by the gods to love his wife forever more." Hades gestured towards the mortal realm. "But he did not. So let him bite his tongue out, stab his eyes out, wonder the Earth a broken man. Tell Gaia herself, the Mother of Nature, he may not rest nor sleep as long as he inhabits her domain."</p><p>"Isn't that unfair?" Thanatos asked.</p><p>Hades snarled. "We are <em>gods, </em>not fools. Justice, not kindness. I follow the laws of deities. His happiness was forfeit a long time ago."</p><hr/><p>Orpheus pulled out his lyre, hovering a second away from tying a noose with the strings; the same way a man about to jump might pause in hesitation. <em>Is it really worth it?</em></p><p>Eurydice's corpse-like form burnt itself into his eyes. <em>Yes.</em> </p><p>
  <em>Yes, it damn well is.</em>
</p><p>Orpheus plucked out the strings, one by one, staring at his precious <em>precious </em>lyre, and threw it into the dirt below him.</p><p>He didn't wait to see where it landed.</p><hr/><p>The darkness never came.</p><p>
  <em>I should be dead, I should be in Tartarus now-</em>
</p><p>Orpheus stared into the river below, saw bruised and bloody skin, a crushed windpipe that could no longer breathe.</p><p>
  <em>Wait...</em>
</p><p><em>I </em>am <em>dead.</em></p><p>He opened his mouth, tried to speak, but found himself lacking; the words fought against him, tangled in his lungs, and left him choking. </p><p>"I..." he said, and that was all he could manage before his body gave out.</p><p>
  <em>What have I become?</em>
</p><hr/><p>When Eurydice saw him, she laughed, a mix of confusion and betrayal and horror, an in that sound he saw how he'd treated his wife.</p><p>In the shame of it all, he turned around and did the only thing he knew how to do: run.</p><p>
  <em>Coward.</em>
</p><hr/><p>The breaking point came after having run for days on end. He collapsed, exhausted, in a bush, unwilling to take in any more of the world.</p><p>
  <em>What monster have I created?</em>
</p><p>Eurydice would find him eventually <em>(and isn't that just what you promised to do for her? You failed, Orpheus),</em> would follow him to the ends of the Earth if she had to. He looked around wildly, not wanting to see the <em>(self-made) </em>horrors he'd unleashed.</p><p>He picked up a stick from the ground and forced it through first one eye, then the next, howling in pain. If he had to cut off every last limb he had to finally die, he <em>would.</em></p><hr/><p>"Why can't I <em>die?</em>" he whimpered, on his knees in front of an altar. "I- what did I do?"</p><p>"What did you do?" one of the dryads whispered in his ear, crooning. "Oh, Orpheus, you promised to love you wife forever. You even went to Hell to save her. But when she came back ugly on the outside, you turned ugly on the inside." A tree branch crawled around his arm, stopping him from moving.</p><p>"Yes, Orpheus," came another voice. "You betrayed her."</p><p>They all started chorusing that, roots and branches and sticks strangling him. "Hades made us promise you'd never die!"</p><p>"No," he sobbed, "no, no, I didn't, I-"</p><p>"Nothing to say? Then we'll pluck out your tongue, and you'll never say another lie again."</p><p>Orpheus cried out.</p><p>He didn't do so again.</p><hr/><p>Eurydice caressed him with hands he couldn't see, could only feel, the horror of them now matching his body. "I'm sorry," she whispered, taking in his mutilated body. "You didn't deserve that."</p><p>He shivered, and shook, and tried to withdraw from her. "Orpheus, my love, stay with me..."</p><p>She didn't mean he should live. </p><p>
  <em>I</em>
  <em>'m cursed. </em>
  <em>Cursed to stay like this, forever, with my equally cursed wife.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was never meant to end this way.</em>
</p><p>(Oh, but it won't end.)</p>
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